Monthly Archives: March 2016
March 31, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
On Saturday, Syracuse University will face the University of North Carolina in a semi-final game of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. This season, North Carolina finished first in the ACC with a record of 14-4. Syracuse finished tenth with a record of 9-9. In addition, North Carolina defeated Syracuse when the teams met about a month ago. It seems odd, therefore, that North Carolina is asked to beat Syracuse again
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March 31, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
We have written about how “regionalism” and its handmaiden “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) are, in effect, an attempt by the left to dictate the way Americans will live. Now, we see that they also entail an attempt to tell elected officials what they must say. This has become apparent from efforts to muzzle Westchester Country Executive Rob Astorino. Westchester County, New York is ground zero in the left’s push
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March 31, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Pretty clear that the one group is expected to keep in the closet on college campuses these days: conservatives—especially conservative faculty. Harvey Mansfield tells the story of how, when he finally received tenure at Harvard man years ago, he sent a telegram to Leo Strauss saying, “I have received tenure. Now we raise the Jolly Roger!” But even tenure won’t necessarily protect you from the braying hounds of leftist conformity.
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March 31, 2016 — Steven Hayward
News out just this afternoon that George Mason University’s fine law school will be renamed the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University. I know that the law school’s dynamic dean, Henry Butler, has been working on this idea for a while, and secured $30 million in new contributions to the school (which will go mostly to student scholarships).* So congrats to Henry and GMU. And expect lefty
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March 31, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, President Obama commuted the sentences of 61 drug offenders. Here is a list of the 61. I have three observations. First, Obama did not commute the sentence of Weldon Angelos, the poster child (and rightly so) of the sentencing leniency movement. Angelos was sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling marijuana. The sentencing judge, conservative Paul Cassell, followed the sentencing guidelines. He has called the sentence the must
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March 31, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Donald Trump’s treatment of Ben Carson presents as a kind of case study in his technique. He first treated Caron respectfully. Then he turned on him, drawing on autobiographical passages in Carson’s books to question his veracity and mental balance. When Carson dropped out and endorsed Trump, however, the good times rolled again. Trump speaks kindly of his friend Ben. But all has not been smooth sailing. Carson has had
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March 31, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Whenever I write anything critical of Trump, I elicit the criticism that I just don’t get it. I should probably have included the admission that I don’t get it in my confession. The omission was an oversight. I will seek to remedy the oversight here and in occasional posts under this heading. In his excellent column “Present at the destruction,” Rich Lowry catches Trump in the act of being Trump
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March 30, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Villanova upset Kansas, the number one seed in the NCCA tournament this year, to reach the Final Four. Coach Jay Wright used a zone defense to shut down Kansas star Perry Ellis who had torched Maryland’s good man-to-man defense in the Round of 16. Against Kansas, Villanova also displayed the toughness that has characterized its teams down through the years. Here are the players that stand out for me in
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March 30, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Well, we didn’t actually get a glimpse of the Outback: we spent two weeks in Melbourne and a couple of days in Sydney. But we are home from Australia, anyway, and I thought some of our readers might be interested in a report. The main purpose of our trip was to spend some time with my daughter Laura and her husband Peter. Peter’s job has taken them to Melbourne for
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March 30, 2016 — John Hinderaker
There are reasons to think that Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is a jerk and in some respects a thug. But in my opinion, the decision by a prosecutor in Florida to charge Lewandowski with criminal assault in connection with his encounter with former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields is a joke. The police report in the case says that “probable cause exists to charge Corey Lewandowski… with (1) count
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March 30, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Have you been wondering just what the heck “intersectionality” is? Well, okay, just pretend you have. Or pretend that you just now figured out it isn’t the jargon of traffic engineers who try to explain how they always manage to make four-way intersections dysfunctional. Naturally it is the precious creation of the academic left, and Christina Hoff Sommers offers a splendid explanation and takedown in her latest “Factual Feminist” video,
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March 30, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Recently, a student at American University Washington College of Law put a note on the door of a law professor stating “All Lives Matter.” This expression of what ought to be truism caused the AU law faculty to freak out. Nearly sixty faculty members and staff signed a letter calling this an “incidence of intolerance.” A sounder position would hold that objecting to the statement “All Lives Matter” as a
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March 30, 2016 — Scott Johnson
John wrote about the the case of Jamar Clark in the aptly headed post “Ferguson comes to Minneapolis.” Clark was supposedly the victim of a police shooting on the evening just past midnight in the early hours of a Sunday morning this past November. Minneapolis police had been called to the scene of an assault that occurred less than two blocks from the nearest precinct station. Clark had beaten his
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March 30, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
A poll by Marquette Law School finds Ted Cruz well ahead of Donald Trump in Wisconsin’s Republican primary among likely voters. According to the poll, Cruz is at 39.6 percent; Trump at 30.4 percent; and John Kasich at 21.4 percent. The survey was conducted before Scott Walker endorsed Ted Cruz. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton 49.2 to 44.9. And in the Senate race, Russ Feingold has
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March 30, 2016 — Steven Hayward
The very interesting but anonymous proprietors of the Journal of American Greatness have replied to my post here last week, “Understanding Trump Better Than He Understands Himself?” Very much worth taking in the whole thing, but here are a couple of highlights: The estimable Steve Hayward says of us (and more generally about other pro-, or anti-anti-Trump, writers on the right) that he’s “wondering if these interpretations of the Trump
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March 30, 2016 — Steven Hayward
I was tempted to post this item without comment, but can’t resist: Man Disguised as Woman Recorded “Hours” of Mall Restroom Video: Investigators Charges were filed Tuesday against a man who wore a wig and women’s clothing to disguise himself as he allegedly used a concealed camera to record “hours” of video of women in a Los Angeles-area department store restroom. How do we know he was “disguised”? That might
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March 30, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
With the Wisconsin primary fast approaching, Gov. Scott Walker yesterday endorsed Ted Cruz. He will campaign for, and with, Cruz in the coming days. Endorsements of non-Trump candidates by leading state figures haven’t tended to slow Donald Trump in the past. In South Carolina, for example, endorsements by Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott boosted Marco Rubio in relation to the other also-rans, but failed to prevent Trump from
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